Day 396: Resentment towards "love"

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Magical love rainbow beams oh god I just want to VOMIT

While reading through my last post about falling in love I realized how I was trying to distance myself from the concept of love in my writing, trying to make it appear as if “love” was something of lesser value and separate from me. I realized that this is a pattern I have had ever since childhood: I fear admitting to loving or liking someone. I have created a separation between myself and love, alienating myself from love, resenting it – thinking of it as a weakness. This is basically how I have felt myself when exposed in loving someone – weak and vulnerable – and so I have taken on that judgement towards all love, seeing all caring as “infatuation”. To protect myself I have taken an aggressively defensive approach towards the concept of love.

I've been examining this mindset in my habits for some time now. For example, I've had the habit of avoiding the people I like and waiting for them to come to me. I've realized that this is really backwards behavior: how would anyone know I want to approach them if I avoid them?! I have now been practicing for example allowing myself to show and express the fact that I enjoy the presence of someone or that I am happy about seeing someone.

But only now I am starting to see how this refusal of love extends a lot further than just some habits. It is fear of exposement, trying to appear strong and stoic, not realizing that exposement IS the only way of being unwaveringly stable, as then there are no weak spots left to be jabbed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my feelings of care, attraction, enjoyment, joy and enthusiasm (love) by thinking of them as “foolish” and “stupid”, not realizing that I have been distancing myself from these feelings because I have felt weak and vulnerable when experiencing them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if my feelings of care, attraction, enjoyment, joy and enthusiasm are seen I will be ridiculed and thus hurt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all this is actually circular reasoning:

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I only get hurt by the remarks of others if I accept and allow myself to take these remarks personally.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I had nothing to hide, I would not be afraid of others seeing who I am.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I showed myself to others, I would not have to fear getting hurt.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by hiding my feelings I sabotage myself by causing myself to be in a position where I will eventually get hurt as something of me gets exposed.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I didn't hide myself, I would in fact be safe.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that exposement is strength.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to learn to fear and hide my feelings by observing my parents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to reinforce this pattern by succumbing to group dynamics in school where I took the role of the “quiet kid”, thus not expressing myself unabashed but rather letting others take the stage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to lock myself into this position of not speaking / not expressing, not taking the chance to learn to express myself even when our family dynamics changed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to learn to hide my feelings because I experienced my family environment as “chaotic”, thus attempting to bring balance into my environment by denying my own experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to continue to hide my feelings in an attempt to avoid chaos/conflict as I haven't had a ready model on how to deal with it – not realizing that I am no longer a child and no longer have to fear chaos as I am not “at the mercy” of my environment but can in fact shape it through my own actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if there's chaos/conflict in my environment, I know how to deal with it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to know how to deal with chaos/conflict as I have forgotten to breathe.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe and thus lose my stability in challenging situations.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe when I fear getting exposed, thus forgetting that getting exposed is not dangerous as I will remain here nevertheless.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe when I get exposed (by my own will or another's), thus getting stuck in the situation as the reaction of fear paralyzes me, not realizing that through breathing I could accept my exposement and stand within and as who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by remembering to breathe and remaining HERE I also support others to remain stable when and as they expose themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to deny myself the experience of love.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing my status and image if I allowed myself the experience of love, not realizing that I am not actually afraid of my image breaking in the eyes of others but of my self-image breaking in my own eyes, wanting to be stoic and strong because this is the role I assigned for myself as a child per to my circumstances.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I don't have to be stoic and strong.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-suppression is not strength.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be embarrassed about using the word “love” as I judge love to be stupid, irrational, worthless and air-headed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the feelings, actions and motivations we compile under the word “love” - which differ from definition to definition – can in fact be beneficial, supportive, constructive, wise and worthwhile, and that it simply depends on how I choose to define “love” for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent all concepts of love based on those that define love to be possessive, addictive, exclusive, irresponsible and a “mystery”, not realizing that this is not what “love” has to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define love according to how it's portrayed in the mainstream world through stories and images.

• redefining the word 'love' for myself:
  • an act of good will considered upon what is the best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define love as a bundle of feelings when in fact love can only bear fruit when it is acted upon, not when it's just felt.

“Love, love is a verb

love is a doing word

fearless on my breath”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that simply breathing can be an act of love.

I commit myself to explore the word 'love' and the concept of love in my daily living.

• I commit myself to use the word 'love' to work my way through the resentment I have built against it.

I commit myself to support myself through my fear of exposement through breathing.

I commit myself to show myself love/care by reminding myself to breathe.

Now that I see, realize and understand that I am alive so that I could enjoy life with other living beings – enjoyment here not only meaning positive feelings but all learning experiences, be they more or less painful – I commit myself to take chances with other beings and take “leaps of faith” by exposing myself, thus showing and teaching myself that I have nothing to fear.

I commit myself to investigate my reactions to perceived criticism when I take things personally to lessen my fear of rejection/refusal.

Day 371: Dissolving an emotion: remnants of a panic disorder

26122013

Yesterday I watched a movie which was really shocking and heavy for me to experience. After the movie I had to cry and speak to express some of the emotion that had gathered onto my chest, but for some reason this was not enough. I felt as if I wanted to curl up, be held, be comforted, block out my surroundings. For a while I played along with this desire, seeking for the closeness of another person. But then I started to realize the emotion was still there and blocking me. I started to describe out loud how I felt and I realized that my entire body was collapsing around the weight in my chest. I tried to physically straighten myself up, stand up, open my chest, and I couldn't do it, it was too heavy: as soon as I stood up I wanted go back into hiding, and as I forced myself to stand I could do nothing but moan and breathe.

What helped here was that I allowed myself to curl up into a comfortable spot, which is where I started to go through the reactions I had had towards what was shown in the movie. I used self-forgiveness to face the reasons for my reactions, many so intimate that I can rarely talk about them to anyone. As I went through the reactions I would go through the emotions again, the wave of energy crashing over me, but this time as I went through the specific trigger points the emotions actually dissolved. I focused on my breathing and little by little straightened myself up when opening my chest no longer felt unbearable.

What I realized here is that when I feel heavy emotions (which happens quite rarely) I have a tendency to allow myself to seek for comfort and brush the emotions aside instead of dealing with them directly. For example, when emotions accumulate into my chest, I just want to curl up and be comfortable.

I now see and realize that I have a habit of ignoring heavy emotions for the sake of comfort and that to continue with the habit is to suppress myself and not utilize emotions as indicators of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I feel negative emotions in my chest area, to follow that energy and curl up my body around my chest area as if to protect, crystallize and lock in the emotions that I feel.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the fact that I respond to heaviness in my chest by curling up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape the emotions by curling up instead of facing and embracing them by straightening up and opening my chest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing my emotions because I have feared that they would be “too much” for me; that I would not be able to handle the pain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to magnify and worsen emotions through my thoughts when and as they are experienced – thinking “oh no, this is so horrible” etc. - thus “fueling the fire” and making an emotion last longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that an emotion is but energy within my body which can be released once seen and understood.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to deal with emotions, not realizing that the process of walking through an emotion is something I already know: to recognize, pinpoint and identify the emotion, to find the appropriate ways of physically expressing and venting out the emotion and to release the emotion by embracing it through self-forgiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not be able to dissolve an emotion and accumulate this fear into a panic, thus losing control of my breath (hyperventilation) and locking myself into an emotional clusterfuck (a panic attack that wears out as I run out of stamina).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that as long as I keep myself to the basics (breathing, movement, speech/writing) I will be able to walk my way through anything.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the reason I developed a panic disorder around the age of 16 (which continued for years to come) was most likely because of pent up emotions that I did not know how to express or did not want to face.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to hide and suppress my emotions as a child because within my family dynamics I felt as if there was no room for my emotions as it already seemed chaotic enough to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to harm myself by suppressing myself and collapsing inwards for the sake of a sense of balance and harmony within my family.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a habit of curling up to hide my emotions from myself as well as from others.

When and as I see myself physically curling up, I stop, I breathe and I check myself for emotions and energies, both in the body and the mind. If there is emotion/energy within me, I focus on my breath and try to open up my physique. I investigate the trigger/reaction points that have started the emotion/energy and I use self-forgiveness if necessary to release the emotion/energy. I slow down in breath and I continue with this for as long as it takes for the emotion/energy to dissipate.

I commit myself to investigate how I suppress myself emotionally in my current living.

Days 355-356: Escaping physical strain

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In regards to what I wrote about alcohol/socializing being a way to relax for me, I've been paying attention to how and why I make my moment-to-moment living uncomfortable / unenjoyable so that I need the release from “leisure” to balance myself from the exhaustion I have created. So far I have come across some points.

• Physical strain: either my backpack is too heavy or the wrong size for me, or my posture is not OK for sustainably carrying a heavy backpack while walking long distances. Also, my physical reading positions are rarely such where I would not end up in pain: I always eventually jam up my back and/or shoulders. As I write my shoulder muscles are currently in a very painful state.
• Partly because of the physical discomfort I tend to escape my breath-to-breath living into my mind. I usually think about a) past events, b) future events or c) imaginary events – stuff that doesn't exist anymore / yet / at all – and I do this over and over again without achieving any new insights with any of the recurring thoughts.
• A point I noticed while walking long distances was impatience. When there is some reason for me to feel impatient to “be there already” (e.g. be home already because I am hungry and I have food waiting for me) I escape my moment-to-moment living into the mind as described above, as if to distract myself from the discomfort that is here (such as hunger) to get me “faster” to my goal/destination. Even though this method makes it seem as if “time goes faster” because I momentarily become unaware of myself and the discomfort my physical body is experiencing, I actually sabotage myself because when and as I distract my attention from my body's actual needs I lock myself into a state of tension. For example, when I am walking outside and it is cold, if I distract myself to not be aware of the coldness and instead ”float around” in a mind bubble, my body will still experience the coldness and be in a state of tension as I am not giving my body any attention. Instead I could be aware of the experience of coldness, keep myself in deep and slow breathing and relax my body with each breath, through this assisting and supporting my body to survive the cold. I have noticed through experimenting that when I relax myself within an uncomfortable experience, it actually becomes less uncomfortable (e.g. cold feels less cold) – I'm guessing it has something to do with how blood flows in muscles (tense vs. relaxed).

Alright. I will now walk these points and see what comes of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe so that I have not noticed the physical pain in my body caused by a bad posture before the pain gets bad enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore my body telling me that the posture I am in is damaging to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I “need to” study at the expense of my physical body because there are “no better options”, not realizing that I am causing myself extensive damage and making my studying more difficult in the long run, and that there is sure to be some option that I just haven't figured out yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on trying to find a physically painless way to study and instead settle for positions that are not good for my health.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that pushing myself to study through pain is self-sabotage, as the pain will eventually render me unable to study.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my discomfort into the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my experience being uncomfortable with fear and thus create a desire to no longer be there, thus fulfilling this desire by escaping my experience into a mind illusion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to discomfort with the fear of not being able to handle it, believing and perceiving that physical discomfort is something “overwhelming”, not realizing that physical discomfort can in fact be dealt with simply by breathing, locating the problem and taking necessary actions to solve the problem.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to no realize that when in discomfort, the simple act of breathing and bringing my awareness to the pain is to gift myself with the attention that I actually require, and that escaping the discomfort by not breathing and distracting myself with thoughts/images is to neglect myself and ignore the needs of my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my uncomfortable experience of the physical reality into the mind as thoughts and imaginations of the past and future, thus losing myself into what is not actually HERE and neglecting that which is actually HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a thought/image is “more enjoyable” than my experience of the actual reality and that this enjoyability is a valid reason to escape the reality, not realizing that the enjoyment in the mind is temporary and fades and that every moment spent away from HERE brings consequences: if I shut my eyes while driving a car, every moment spent driving with my eyes closed might take me off the road.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the enjoyment within/of the mind / the conceptual reality always fades, whereas enjoyment within/of this physical reality is sustainable.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become impatient with the cause of my physical discomfort (cold, rain, hunger, tiredness) and to escape the discomfort by thinking of the moment when I will get rid of it (by getting home, getting to a shelter, getting food, getting to rest etc.), and thus “mend” my impatience by imagining I'm “there already” or by telling myself I'm “almost there”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my physical needs need to be “soothed” with imagination or otherwise they will overpower me, not realizing that if I am not actually dying my physical needs cannot in fact overpower me by themselves, and that my experiences and memories of a physical need becoming “overwhelming” are such where I have made it “overwhelming” through the mind with enhancing thoughts such as “I am so hungry/cold”, “I am in so much pain”, “this sucks”, “I hate this”, “I'm so far away from home”, “why can't I be there already”, “this feels awful” et cetera, where I have eventually been overpowered by my own helplessness and not the problem itself.

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I commit myself to keep myself in breath before, during and after I study (read text from a book / computer screen OR write on a notepad / computer) to keep my awareness in my physical body and to thus ensure that no painful point – message from my body, the living organism – goes unnoticed.

• Before I study, I commit myself to find myself a comfortable position to study in.
• During studying, I commit myself to take note of any pain I might feel and to adjust my posture/position accordingly, making sure that I get up and move around every 15 minutes.
• After studying, I commit myself to pay attention to the remaining effects of the physical act of studying in my body.

I commit myself to show myself that I am capable of surviving non-lethal physical discomfort, such as hunger, tiredness and changes in temperature, by returning myself to breath whenever I escape the physical reality into my mind and by keeping myself stable and relaxed in breath until the problem can be solved.

When and as I create dramatic thoughts about my state of discomfort – such as “I am so hungry/tired/cold” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that with these thoughts I give in to helplessness, believing and perceiving that I am powerless to direct the situation to the best possible outcome. I realize that the reality is not in fact dramatic as everything moves according to simple causality (if I do not eat, I will eventually get hungry) and that within a reality of causality there is always also some kind of a course of action available that will work as a solution to undesired circumstances (when I go home, I will eat food). I stabilize myself in breath, search for an actual solution to the problem, and I keep myself stable until the problem is resolved.

I commit myself to explore how to find comfort in discomfort through breathing, relaxing and taking care of my basic physical needs.

Alright, I'll continue with more related points tomorrow.

Day 343: Facing myself within the fear of men

28102013

"Lean on me" by Susan Lyon

I have recently become involved in a new relationship, and it is still in the process of taking form which is why I will not go into details on it yet. It has been a pretty dominant experience for me during the past few weeks and I am now starting to see what I have been going through when facing this new person – or more accurately, who I am with this person.

When I met this person I was both attracted to him and extremely scared of him. There was nothing about him that would have required me to be cautious, which is the purpose of fear as a survival mechanism: he was not dangerous, malicious or abusive. The reason I was (and still am a little bit) afraid of him is because of a stereotype of men I connected him to upon my first impression of him, and also because of what I see of myself when I am with him. In his presence I am faced both with the absurdity of judging people by who they appear to be and with the boundaries of my current comfort zone.

Because of the stereotype in my mind – which I have compiled as a result of my past experiences with men – I was at first suspicious of him and cautious around him, which basically manifested as an all-over tension in my body and a lack of relaxed breathing. When I interacted with him this became more and more obvious to me because within the interaction I was getting constant feedback and support, both verbal and non-verbal. I had to face the fact that this person was showing me his trustworthiness and exposing himself to me while I was being reserved and judgmental out of fear.

A while back I was writing about a core question that had arisen in me: who am I with others? I have noticed that there isn't really anyone I would be entirely relaxed with – the kind of relaxed that I am alone at home without the fear of anyone seeing me – and I realized that I am starting to approach a point in walking myself out of introversion where I am going to have to write this shit out in detail and apply it in practice. However, for now I have not done so, at least not as effectively as I could have. It may be because I am currently living alone and also haven't been in a partnership with anyone for a year: I have not had that stable and consistent platform for feedback and support that helps immensely in self-development. My situation is currently changing from having no intense support to having plenty of it (more on that later), and I think that this is a prime opportunity to start focusing on the personalities I utilize to protect myself within social conduct.

A personality I have come across is one that I call the “happy persona” - a state of being where I hesitate sharing my troubles, worries and challenges and rather portray myself to be joyous, successful and trouble-free. I will begin walking this point with self-forgiveness in posts to come.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge X to be “just another man” after nothing but sex because he was straightforward, handsome and appeared confident.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that men who are straightforward – directly addressing what is going on instead of tip-toeing around the issue – are only interested in self-satisfaction (getting what they desire as fast as possible), not realizing that I have created this interpretation based on a few past experiences where some men have approached me with the purpose of having sex with me, as well as on the image of men as sexually predatory which the society and culture I grew up in has taught me – and that the reason I avoid straightforward men and gravitate towards shy men is because shy men feel “safe” to me whereas straightforward men feel “dangerous” - not realizing that this “gut feeling” of mine doesn't actually say anything about the actual intentions about the people: the shy guy might as well be looking for someone to manipulate while the straightforward guy might be sincerely interested in other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that good-looking men are bound to be assholes because their looks “must have” provided them with so much popularity that they have become self-centered – not realizing that this is yet another stereotype I have created based on a few real-life examples (completely ignoring the good-looking people who have turned out incredibly humble) and on the character of the “handsome douche” that is everywhere in the pop culture.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that “good looks” - no matter how normative – are subjective, and that “good looks” is not an asset that would work for the benefit of a person anywhere universally, and that therefore I cannot assume that a person has “had it good” just because of how their face and body is shaped because I don't know what kind of a life they have actually lived and how they have experienced it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that confident men are abusive because they are often assertive whereas I have been passive and easy to comply.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge confident men as “abusive”, not realizing that I am actually afraid of them because I perceive myself to be “powerless” in front of their assertiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place myself in the position of “the abused” and blame another for “abusing” me when in fact I have done nothing to become assertive and self-directed myself and then complied to the assertiveness of another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel threatened by the confidence of another because I have felt like I am “losing” in comparison to the other – not realizing that what I perceive as “confidence” might not even be confidence and that the person might actually be just as scared as I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for “safety” from shy men who have not been confident, assertive and/or straightforward because with them I have not had to develop my confidence, assertiveness and straightforwardness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give X a chance to show me who he really is / myself a chance to see who he really is because it was easier to defend myself with the stereotype of a “non-trustworthy man” (“stay away form this guy bad news bad news!”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not admit to myself that my assumptions and first-impressions about X were influenced by fear and that my view of him was distorted from the start.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to approach a person through fear, manifested as tension in my body, and then blame the other for “coming too close” when and as I have been faced with my own fearful and tense state of being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear when another has challenged my belief on how social situations “should be” conducted: when, where and how are which actions “allowed”.

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[Cut out some personal SF that went into more detail on the beliefs that were challenged. The conclusion I came to was that when I believe that certain forms of self-expression are "not allowed" in social conduct until enough time has passed and an appropriate sense of "trustworthiness" has been established, I support myself to assume the worst out of everyone I do not yet know "well enough" - which is the majority of all the fucking people on this planet - and consequently give myself permission to be reserved and limited with everyone who hasn't made it into my "inner circle".]

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing and exposing the fact that I am excited and happy about this new person being in my life and the opportunities this situation opens up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing my excitement because I have wanted to remain “above” the situation by appearing “cool”, not realizing that this is yet another defense mechanism I use to protect myself from abuse – not realizing that I will not protect myself from abuse by distancing myself from people and suppressing my interest towards people but by not living as the compliant, passive victim I have gotten used to being.

When and as I am with X, I commit myself to focus on my breathing as much as possible to stabilize myself and thus assist and support myself to notice and face my own reactions, feelings, emotions and thoughts.

I commit myself to write about the points that arise within interaction with X.

I commit myself to utilize this opportunity to practice self-honest communication by not accepting and allowing myself to hide myself from X and by instead sharing my experience in its entirety without sugar-coating. (Quite awesome that he supports me in this!)

I will continue with the “who am I with others” personality point in posts to come.

Day 327: Attraction, part 5

 03102013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 323: Attraction, part 1

Day 324: Attraction, part 2

Day 325: Attraction, part 3

Day 326: Attraction, part 4

The connection personality (see yesterday's post for context)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a connection in relationships because I have felt disconnected from Life.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disconnect myself from Life – from all that there is – by believing and perceiving that I am somehow “special”, “unique” and “individual”, that I am “different” from other forms of Life because I have a consciousness of my “own”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the experience of “being alive” from the energetic experience of “connecting” with another person as I have separated/alienated myself from the experience of being alive in every single breath.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate/alienate myself from myself as a being of Life by not realizing I am in fact alive in every single heartbeat, every single inhale and exhale, every single moment that passes by.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an expectation that “being alive” should feel somehow “big” and “overwhelming” and to thus feel disappointed when my life does not include that rush of energy. *

* I need to investigate where this expectation/definition has been created. Probably somewhere in my childhood, where positive life experiences have been experienced with a rush of energy, thus confusing this energy and “good living” to be connected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a connection in relationships because I have felt disconnected from myself.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disconnect myself from myself by resenting myself, thinking that life experienced through “who I am” is not “good enough” - it doesn't feel big, strong, overwhelming, ecstatic, powerful, fulfilling enough – not realizing that I have created “who I am” and that I am thus responsible for my life experience not being enjoyable, and that I cannot mend this by seeking for fulfillment from outside of me, as if I was abandoning a sinking ship.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my life does not feel fulfilling because of how I live from within myself, and that I have created my experience of unfulfillment/disconnection by living as a being that is limited, suppressed, fearful and self-dishonest.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a “cure” for my unfulfillment/disconnection from other people, wanting to live through others as my “ship” has already been sinking, not realizing that I cannot escape this “ship” and jump onto another – it is simply physically impossible – and that if I want to live a fulfilling life I am going to have to fix THIS “ship” - myself – so that this “ship” could sail on its own.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent facing my own misgivings and finding a way to mend them because they have felt “too much” and “unmendable”, thus giving up on living as self-fulfillment/self-connection and only seeking fulfillment/connection from other people.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for the moment where I “connect” with another because within that moment we become an entity – two beings energetically synchronized – which makes me feel more “fulfilled” as I for a moment live through/in a symbiosis with the other and thus can ignore myself and not live within and as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive it is justified for me to neglect myself and to seek for the experience of “connection” from others as “fulfillment”, because this is what I have for all my life seen others do – this is what my world taught me through example – and because “everyone else is doing it” I believe and perceive myself to be excused to do it as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to crave for the moment where I “connect” with another because within that moment I feel accepted, seen and heard, meaningful, worthy, special and loved – not realizing that I do not experience any of this as myself but only through the other, meaning that if the other was not there I would not experience self-acceptance, self-attention, self-direction, self-worth and self-appreciation but would feel “empty” and “unfulfilled”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the “magnetism” I feel between me and another is a sign that I'm doing the “right thing” - that getting closer to the other is justified – when in fact that “pull” I feel is me moving within and as my mind according to my desire to get to the acceptance I might get from the other, like a beggar approaching a man with a wallet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to replace self-acceptance with the acceptance I get from others, not realizing that this is not a sustainable way of living as the acceptance I get from others always fades so that I have to go “hunting” for more, whereas I could build self-acceptance into my very structure so that it would be with me no matter “where I go” – even if there were no other beings around me to make me feel accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a “good life” is a life lived – meaning that every moment of life is in fact lived within and as breath, as the being that I am in the flesh within the physical existence, and not escaped by jumping from one energetic experience to another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “fully living” means that every moment should “feel like something” - that every moment should be energetically charged.

I will continue with self-corrective statements and commitments on what I have written during the past few days.

Day 324: Attraction, part 2

28092013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 323: Attraction, part 1



Today I focused on writing privately about specific people and interesting stuff emerged. I was losing concentration on studying because these people kept on popping up in my thoughts. I will share some of the SF with names censored.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justifiable to have a “goal” in mind when interacting with another person, not realizing that my justification is “because it would feel nice”, which is my desire talking: the desire would be fulfilled (I would “feel nice”) when the goal would be reached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place X into a “special” position where he is allowed to occupy my mind on an obsessive level – not realizing it's not even X himself in my mind but my image presentation of X, the paper doll I play around with in my scenarios – and that the real X here in the 3D I cannot predict because he is his own individual being who makes his own choices – which is why our interaction is created in the flesh and not within my thoughts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive it is justifiable to be mentally occupied by thinking of another person because there is an attraction and it is “natural” to be obsessed – not realizing that this mind-wankery amounts to nothing at all as the real interaction with this person is not created in the mind but in the physical when and as it is here and not a moment before.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be impatient to explore my relationship to X because he is not here right now, and to thus resort to playing around with the mind-puppets by replaying past moments in my head again and again – not asking myself where this impatience comes from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be impatient to interact with a person I feel attracted towards, not realizing that impatience is wanting to be “there” already – to be in a future moment – not realizing that when I want to be in the future I neglect the present moment, which is all there actually is, the only thing that verifiably exists.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my present moment into the future because in the future there is something “exciting” which makes my present moment seem “less” in comparison – not realizing that the “more” in the future is actually excitement energy and nothing that would concretely make that moment more full of opportunities or such – and that the present moment is actually just “as good” as the future moment, but that they're just different in the opportunities they provide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the future I am impatient to live within is “better” than the present moment I live within right now because the future moment contains energy whereas the present moment doesn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a moment that contains high amounts of energy is just that – a moment with energy – and that measured in breath that moment is equal to all the other moments of my life.

When and as I get impatient to be in a future moment already, I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am disregarding the present moment by longing for the future. I breathe and I remind myself that measured in breath each and every moment of my life is equal, and that the future I crave for is equal to the present moment I am breathing in. I ask myself what makes the future moment appear “better” and I utilize self-forgiveness to release the energy in question. I then look at my present moment from within and as breath and I move myself according to what is here now, and I release the future to be lived when and as it is actually HERE.

All of the above also applies to wanting to return to a past moment and replaying the past moment in the mind to re-live the energy one experienced. It's always away from HERE, be it in the past or the future.

I'll continue again tomorrow.

Days 307-308: Stolen time

03-04092013

I'm totally stealing ALL your precious moments! ... oh, but this is just a clock.

Recently my schedule has filled up explosively due to university, work, social life, organizations and recreational activities, and I am getting increasingly anxious. I see myself thinking of others as “time thieves” when they seek for my attention/time/effort and I easily get frustrated with others because I'm thinking “I don't have time for this!”, yet I don't actually do anything about it – I never address the fact that I am busy but rather try to participate in everything out of obligation. I end up not finishing my tasks because after all the struggling with the “time thieves” I am too exhausted to properly utilize the time that remains of my day and rather just indulge in entertainment to “recharge”.

But in reality the schedule seems much worse than it actually is, and a lot of the things I have taken into my life are flexible and even removable if that's what's required. When I take one day at a time, one activity at a time, one moment at a time I see that I actually have time quite plentifully, especially because of the flexibility of things. So this is about my perspective as well as feeling obligated to participate. I am intimidated by my calendar stretching to weeks and months ahead when I should be focusing on the NOW.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at my schedule and perceive it to be “full”, flipping through the pages of my calendar and getting intimidated by the amount of work I have to get done in a short span of time – not realizing that in between this moment and (for example) the moment I get my last exam of this year done are countless of inhales and exhales, countless of moments of breath when I can little by little through consistency work my way towards getting my workload done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my workload seem bigger than it is by thinking about how little I get done each day, not realizing that that little in time accumulates up to big results.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration to people I perceive to be “demanding” for my time, effort and attention, blaming them for “stealing my time”, not realizing that I am the one who chooses how to “spend” my time – not them – and that it is thus my responsibility to make sure that I have enough time to complete my tasks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not refuse a person requesting for my time because I have not wanted to insult them – I have wanted to avoid conflict – I have not wanted to tell another that I perceive them to not be “worthy” of my time at the moment – that I have something “more important” to do; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to please and to help others because if I wouldn't they might react, feel bad and blame their reaction on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglect my tasks and responsibilities because I have feared being self-honest with others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I spend my time on others out of obligation I am living within the experience “I don't want to be here” - and when I'm still there even though I don't want to I create friction and strain within myself as I am “pulled” to another direction that I am walking in, thus making myself more exhausted than I would be after simply being there and moving myself within and as breath – thus requiring a “recharge” by pumping myself with energy through entertainment (media, food, people, excess sleep) to be able to function again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will “run out of time” - that my life will not be enough for all the things I want to / should get done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time can be “stolen” - that time is a resource I have stacked in a vault somewhere – not realizing that time is a measurement for the movement of matter, not matter itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time is something that I “have” or “possess” - “I don't have time for this”, “I'm wasting my time”, “my time is precious” - not realizing that I do not “have” time because as movement and Life I am time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that time is the relationship between that which exists and how it moves – and that time itself doesn't really exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I think “I don't have time for X” what I mean by it is that I don't want to move to the direction of X – I don't want to rearrange my life in such a way that would allow me to move to X.

(For example, I could say “I don't have time to cook”, when in fact it is just about me not wanting to rearrange my other activities so that I could cook, usually because it feels like too much of a burden.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that eventually I will run out of time – when I die – and that it is the inevitability of the loss of all time that scares me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my “time” (life) will run out before I've completed everything that I want/need/desire to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about gathering up experiences into a “perfect life story” which I could after this Life look back on to feel successful and good about myself – I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about how much I live but about how I live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “successfulness” of my life is not measured in stories I gather into my mind but in each and every breath because the stories do not exist in the NOW - only breath does.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “success” of my studying is not measured in how fast I get my degree but in how effectively I learn.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel that in my life I am in a hurry, as if I was running somewhere, wanting to already be 5 years from here when I'd have my degree and could “get on” with my life – not realizing that the 5 years ahead of me are crucial concerning my future and that I should not try to “fast forward” them, but instead slow down and live each and every moment of these years within and as breath.

--

I also did some private SF on a specific "time thief", and while doing it I realized that most of these cases are actually not about time at all, but about a resentment I feel towards the "time thief", be it a person, activity or an organization. In this particular case the resentment was about a person with whom I can't seem to be able to bring any substance into our interaction. So here the issue was apparently about time - "wasting my time" on something that bears no fruit - but underneath that it was actually about me wanting to escape a person in the presence of whom I felt like I couldn't direct myself, which I then covered up by thinking "I don't have time". I think I need to open this point up a little more later.

--

I commit myself to slow myself down in breath to focus on one task at a time within and as the realization that if my focus is on the things I have to get done in the future I will half-ass what I'm doing NOW.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to get my tasks done properly by making myself a realistic schedule which also allows me space to rest.

I commit myself to focus primarily on my studies and the activities that directly support my studies, and only focus on other things when/as/if there is time left for other things.

When and as I get frustrated with something/someone that I perceive to be “stealing my time” - I stop and I breathe. I realize that I am blaming my own experience of anxiety on the other and abdicating my responsibility for managing my own life. I realize I am driven by the fear of “running out of time” (death) and the fear of failure, which have nothing to do with the “time thief”. I release the blame with self-forgiveness and breathing, and I do the same with my anxiety and fears by grounding myself in breath and reminding myself I am HERE. I check myself for any resentment towards the “time thief” which I might be justifying with “not having time”. I ask myself why I resent spending time on the “time thief” keeping in mind that time is most likely not the actual issue. I direct myself within and as the realization that I will learn the most where I feel uncomfortable.

Days 259-260: Falling from the present

18-19062013

Head full of thoughts. (a graffiti in Seoul)

I have been unable to sleep for a few nights and I am seeing its effect on my health, because I have been catching a cold and not getting sleep is making it worse. The reason I have not been sleeping is because I have had too many thoughts running through my mind. At the moment I have a lot of new things to process, and they hold many insecurity factors that make it impossible for me to lay them aside when there is nothing I can do about them but wait. I have today been writing them out in order to see what's going on and to thus stop them from running around rampantly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be distracted from the reality around me with thoughts concerning the past and the future.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lose my grip on what is here right now at hand by giving permission to my thoughts to direct me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value my thoughts about the past and the future more than what is here right now in actual reality as I have not realized that the past and the future are both created in this very moment of breath, and that by clinging onto moments that are not here (yet/anymore) I ignore, misuse and degrade the one and only present-moment that I have got.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that every time I lose myself into thoughts I also fall out of breath and thus lock my entire body into a state of tension, rigidness and stagnation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand the extent of the physical damage I do onto myself when and as I accept and allow myself to be directed by my thoughts into a physical state of tension.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have been lost in my thoughts and ignoring the present moment, to not be aware of the possibilities each and every present moment offers me in terms of activities, socializing and physical location.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be so concerned/exited/agitated about the life I have lived so far and the life that I am going to live in the future that I have forgotten that what actually matters is how I live my present moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent the company of people when and as I have been preoccupied by thoughts of the past and the future and to justify this by thinking “I don't always have to be social” - not realizing that my resentment of company is a way for me to escape the present moment / physical reality into imagined mind-realities of the past and present.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my physical reality into my imagination in the form of past memories and future scenarios.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that me pulling away from social interaction - which is normally an effortless and enjoyable activity - is a sign of a malfunction which should be addressed for the sake of my own well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify ignoring the signs of my malfunction by thinking “I don't always have to be social”, not realizing that I here give directive power and value to fickle feelings that do not have any clear reason other than “just because I feel like it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be directed by a feeling, not realizing that feelings are always temporary and fade eventually and that thus they cannot be a valid building block in myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that every action and inaction builds who I am, and that every time I accept and allow a feeling to direct me into action/inaction I build myself to live out moodiness and unreliability and direct myself further away from stability – and that the results of this process of building will take double the time to take apart and reconstruct.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lose myself in escapism and to thus lose my power to direct myself, my actions and my life.

I am starting to see what may have happened while I've been traveling and why I for example had trouble writing at one point – I saw it then already but wouldn't admit it. I will open up the point further in private and share what I find later on.

I commit myself to continue practicing my breathing in order to bring myself back to balance and stability within and as the realization that once I have fallen from self-aware breathing it will require conscious efforts and pushing to bring me back to that state of physical presence.

I commit myself to write down into my notebook the thoughts running around in my mind in order to pin them down, open them up in writing and to direct them instead of having them direct me – putting myself back “in the wheel”.

I commit myself to write down a clear plan on what I can do to prepare for things in my future and to get those things done as soon as possible – and I commit myself to set aside all the things I have no influence over at the moment within and as the realization that worrying about them is a waste of time and an act of abuse on this one and only now-moment.

Days 253-254: I don't want to go home

10-11062013

A friend told me she is returning to Finland to continue studying the same subject I have applied to study myself. I reacted to this information with relief and joy, which is because recently as I have been traveling I have become more and more uncertain about what to do with my life and have created a reluctance to return to Finland at all. I found comfort in the fact that she would be there with me because then I would feel less lonely, less alone, less of a “lonely warrior” when my life takes on a new direction – or when I am supposed to take a new direction – when I am to change my life into something it has not been before.

See, I have created a reluctance to return to my home town and region not because of the place itself – the town is nice to live, work and study in – but because of the life I have lived within it. I fear that as soon as I return my “old life” will suck me back in because of all the habits and tendencies that I associate with the physical location and everything that I have lived through within it in the past. I fear that I will regress. I fear that my environment will not support me in my process of change. I fear that my environment will make change more difficult than it already is. But here I make changing like a big demon that I have to battle, I make it more than it is. There is bound to be friction because when there is a harmonious flow of particles and one particle suddenly decides to change its course it will conflict with the other particles – but that is just what it is, movement and inevitabilities, and it should not be interpreted to be anything else. If I change, I change, and it will require being certain of who I am as I change, what I am changing and who I become as I change. Not by enforcing a mantra of ideals but by knowing myself and living according to who I choose to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear change because I fear standing utterly alone with my decisions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist returning to an environment which I believe, perceive and assume to not support me in any way in my process of change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my environment will resist and suffocate my attempt to change the direction of my life and that I will be helpless in front of this resistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to be unable to stand within and as my decisions in the face of external pressure or resistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when/as/if I get into conflict with my environment – when there is friction in between how I have decided to direct my life and how my environment responds to it – I will be left without support and will thus crumble like a cookie.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if my environment does not support me I cannot stand, not realizing that with this belief I demand that my environment gives me support and make my own standing dependent on how my environment sees me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stand within and as my decisions only when certain conditions are met (when my environment shows me enough support), not realizing that by doing so I live as less than I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that my fundamental support – myself – is not going anywhere and will always “be there for me” even if I received no external support i.e. from other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, within my fear of failure, to create a worst-case scenario where I give into peer pressure and screw up my life completely, making all of my process so far meaningless as I regress through my self-limitation to who I was in the past – not realizing that by creating and upholding such a scenario in the first place I believe myself to be just as “weak” as the scenario implies and will support myself to live out this exact “weak personality”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to be “weak” (unable to direct myself / easily directed by others) because I have lived like this in the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify living as this “weak personality” by blaming my inability to change the direction of my life on my environment, accusing my environment of suppressing me and not giving me permission to live my life how I choose to - not realizing that no matter the amount of external pressure I am always the one to accept and allow my inner experience to be influenced and my movement to be directed by external factors, and that the responsibility for my self-compromise thus cannot be pushed on anyone else but is in fact mine to carry.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear going back home because I fear it will be difficult and that I will fail to change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that hardship is an inevitable part of the process of change and that it is not required to be feared – it will be there whether I fear it or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent, avoid and fear hardship as I have not wanted to recognize it to be a part of life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear hardship because it contains the possibility of failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that just as every breath I take requires my muscles to move and go through effort, so does living one's life require consistent effort, pushing and active movement – otherwise one will end up standing still.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear adversity because I fear that I will fail to overcome it, not realizing that there is no way to perfectly “win” the battle with the challenges I face but simply different ways to deal with them, each with their own results.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to find a way to deal with the challenges I face – one that would not compromise me or anyone and which would take into consideration the consequences of my actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust my ability to figure out what choice of action would consider the best of all (myself included).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I do not trust myself to make good decisions I require others to validate my decisions for me to make up for my lack of self-trust and thus make it easier for myself to crumble and not live according to my decisions when others do not give me the validation I believe myself to need.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my life by not trusting myself to be able to make well-informed, considerate and responsible decisions.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a mind-scenario where change is a big, dramatic battle with opposing forces that try to destroy me with all their might, believing and perceiving myself to be doing the “right thing” and the opposers to be promoting the “wrong thing” - not realizing that change is only dramatic if I compare it to the passiveness that precedes and surrounds it, and that without the act of comparison change is just movement among movement, life among life, breath among breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that change is not about big, movie-like storylines but about individual moments of breath where change is created through stopping, re-assessing, re-directing and setting off to motion again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the change that happens HERE in the moment of breath by only focusing on the dramatic scenario of “big changes”, not realizing that the drama exists only in my mind and not in the actual reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that change is “big” when in fact it is actually “small” - not a series of movie-like events but single moments of breath in self-awareness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear change as I have believed and perceived it to be something “big” where one can also fail in a grand scale – not realizing that change is not something bigger than me or beyond me but that change IS me as in every moment I inhale and exhale I have a new chance, a new beginning, a new option, a chance to clear the table and choose again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that change is nothing to be afraid of because even if I'd fail I can always try again or choose another direction.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear severing ties to people, groups and activities which I no longer wish to keep a part of my life because I fear that if my choice to do so proves to have been a bad choice I would not have the chance to go back – not realizing that my wish to keep that back gate open, that path to what used to be familiar and comfortable, is born out of the fear of failing and ending up alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that when I choose to leave these people, groups and activities behind me, it will be seen as a hostile act which would then awake negative reactions in others which would then be exerted onto me – not realizing that this is NOT an accurate forecast of what the future will be but is actually the worst-case scenario I have created in my mind based on my fears through guesswork – and that this worst-case scenario can be avoided through how I apply myself within the process of severing these ties.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear re-arranging my priorities and the practical changes they would introduce to my life because I fear the society I live in will not support me in this choice of lifestyle. [These are mainly practical issues that for now I have to wait to solve – I'll get back to this when the issue is here.]

I commit myself to face the response of the environment I change myself in, be it familiar or not, within and as the realization that I do not know in advance what the response of my environment will be and that this is in no way relevant to my decision and standing.

I commit myself to remind myself in the case of conflict that the reactions of my environment are not caused by me and not my responsibility; In situations of conflict I commit myself to take care of and carry responsibility for my own reactions, the experience that I create, uphold and believe in.

I commit myself to focus on the change that happens HERE in the moment of breath within and as the realization that these moments are the ones that accumulate to the “big” changes that I aim for in my life – and I commit myself to support and assist myself with this by practicing self-aware breathing whenever I remember to.